Polygamy justification?

[SeattleUte]

I'm glad my little comment has given you a spring board to emote once again. We don't hear you make this particular point often enough.

I think that you are right that there is still a tendency to put a literal gloss on the garden story, Noah, Jonah, etc. Still, I don't think it is a pillar of belief or required at all. One of the fundamental tenants of Mormonity is the apostacy and the idea that the Bible is either translated incorrectly or omits much that is important. I think the ethos that has grown around that gives a lot of room to believe that many things in the Bible (though not the BOM or POGP) are allegorical. And my own experience tells me there are a great many people in the church who believe in the allegory approach or at least allow that it is possible even if they say they don't know. Still, you are right to say that the large arc is a believe that God has dealt with a chosen people, thought that may simply mean chosen to do the work or even chosen to suffer, at various points in history.



I think that is all true.



I agree that the Bible is a mixed bag of things that the modern mind alternatively views as good or bad. Our own constitution codified that slaves were not fully human as well. Fortunately, most people, even the mullahs of the church, aren't clinging to slavery, racial bigotry or polygamy. I don't even think most would attempt to defend it with anything other than "we don't know why" or "they were obviously imperfect" or "the record is imperfect" or 100 other reasons that would not attribute the bad things to God or else recognize one's own inability to resolve the question. Many of us are comfortable with Paradoxes SU. I said jokingly in another thread that I am a Svyazhky Mormon. It is not a perfect description, but there is some merit in the idea.



You are all over the place here. First, I don't say that, for example, "God can command anything, so why not polyandry" which seems to be your suggestion. What I say is that there is Biblical precedent for prophets getting things wrong or doing what seems inexplicable. Whether this indicates that God is inexplicable or that people are imperfect, I don't claim to know. Part of all Christian belief is the idea that "my ways are not thy ways", that is, that while God is accessible He is not fully comprehensible. Also the idea in almost every Christian Church that there are mysteries. To be Christian is to accept paradox and mystery.

This creates a lot of wiggle room, but this leads into the next point you make which is, fine, that maybe well for Christianity but the Bible is no longer the measuring stick or right and wrong. Here again we move into a much larger discussion on two levels. First is the right and wrong aspect. What do you suggest as your rule of recognition? What makes polyandry wrong and bad? The answer seems to be public opinion. Nothing wrong with that but public opinion shifts all around, particularly on the issue of what sorts of unions adults ought to be allowed to enter into.

Your other examples are BY's racism, which no one defends, and the BOA which is really on the second level of do you accept any religious claim that you can't touch, taste, hear, see or smell. If you don't, there really isn't any common ground to discuss that issue because like most religious claims, probably all, it cannot be proved by a resort to reason. The skeptic will win that debate every time and still not convince the believer who will say that he has the benefit of other supernatural proofs and can in any event rely on faith. This is where people just begin to talk past one another. It is where you begin to talk past a lot of people here. It is the reason that some like me who is skeptical by nature can accept much of your reasoning but not be compelled to rejection as a result. I know that is a mystery to you, but again, it is unique neither to me nor to Christianity nor to any religion. In fact, it is the essence of religion because it is faith.



You admire the Bible as literature and because it is influential, which is fine. I think you are attributing a model to me that is not mine but rather what you imagine the typical Mormon model to be. Hopefully I have given you more detail on what I actually think. I agree that your sphere is not a sphere of faith but I think you are quite wrong to make easy distinctions about to where that sphere does in fact extend. I also think it is possible to place one foot in the sphere or reason and evidence and the other in that of faith and live in a paradoxical state. Think this is in reality what most "religious" people do to one degree or another. I don't fault you for choosing the logically cleaner position of a single sphere, nor really do I fault those who chose only the sphere of faith though I think such persons for the most part are rare. But choosing a path of paradox is not illogical nor without precedent. I think I have some pretty good company much smarter than I am.



What does that expression mean? Is that compliment or insult? I liked Waters over on CG, less so now that it is apparent that Robin's comment that he was more interested in us as decorations at his party than people to be engage has been shown to be manifestly correct. I don't have his creative spark but his inability to focus or follow an argument in a thread allowed me to turn him into a pretzel more than once.

Ever since Martin Luther reacted to the Renaissance by seceding from Catholicism neo-Protestant sects in Europe and later in America arose and tried to turn back the clock to an age of monotheism in its most primitive form. Just like after Rachmanonoff there was no place for Romanticism to go, Joseph Smith was the apotheosis of this movement. Joseph called his church Christianity, but he modeled his church on the Old Testament. That is what has set Mormons apart: a prophet who talks to God. There was even a period of wandering in the wilderness following the prophet's martyrdom, and a promised land.

Funny thing was, the age of prophets had ended, maybe three hundred years before Christ. Yes, Augustine's Christianity represented a step forward from the Old Testament monotheism. It eliminated polygamy, slavery, divinely decreed racism, taught not only love your neighbor but love your enemy, etc. (Lest we forget, Judaism was the seed of Christianity, and it had likewise advanced, housing within its diverse culture all of the more enlightened elements that later became the core of Christianity.)

What are Mormonism's biggest embarassments? Polygamy/polyandry, the priesthood ban, blood atonement, dissonance between Mormonism's historical claims for the Book of Mormon and science, the Book of Abraham scrolls. All of this arises from Mormonism's Old Testament model. I still see Mormons cite the Israelites' racism as precedent for the priesthood ban.

So here's the irony. You say, "I can forgive Brigham Young for being a racist and Joseph Smith for being a lecher and adulturer because Old Testament prophets did worse things and they were still prophets." That's what they were thinking too! Mormonism's foibles all arise from this very atavism you use to excuse its foibles. Some day Mormonism will move beyond this model altogether. It will ackowledge its past wrongs and will just say they were wrong just like many things people did 3,500 years ago were just wrong, because as a society we've increased in moral enlightenment.

[UtahDan]

Ever since Martin Luther reacted to the Renaissance by seceding from Catholicism neo-Protestant sects in Europe and later in America arose and tried to turn back the clock to an age of monotheism in its most primitive form. Just like after Rachmanonoff there was no place for Romanticism to go, Joseph Smith was the apotheosis of this movement. Joseph called his church Christianity, but he modeled his church on the Old Testament. That is what has set Mormons apart: a prophet who talks to God. There was even a period of wandering in the wilderness following the prophet's martyrdom, and a promised land.

Funny thing was, the age of prophets had ended, maybe three hundred years before Christ. Yes, Augustine's Christianity represented a step forward from the Old Testament monotheism. It eliminated polygamy, slavery, divinely decreed racism, taught not only love your neighbor but love your enemy, etc. (Lest we forget, Judaism was the seed of Christianity, and it had likewise advanced, housing within its diverse culture all of the more enlightened elements that later became the core of Christianity.)

What are Mormonism's biggest embarassments? Polygamy/polyandry, the priesthood ban, blood atonement, dissonance between Mormonism's historical claims for the Book of Mormon and science, the Book of Abraham scrolls. All of this arises from Mormonism's Old Testament model. I still see Mormons cite the Israelites' racism as precedent for the priesthood ban.

So here's the irony. You say, "I can forgive Brigham Young for being a racist and Joseph Smith for being a lecher and adulturer because Old Testament prophets did worse things and they were still prophets." That's what they were thinking too! Mormonism's foibles all arise from this very atavism you use to excuse its foibles. Some day Mormonism will move beyond this model altogether. It will ackowledge its past wrongs and will just say they were wrong just like many things people did 3,500 years ago were just wrong, because as a society we've increased in moral enlightenment.

All that work and you only skimmed what I wrote. I do agree with your last sentence though for the most part.

[Jeff Lebowski]

We truly are on different spheres. My sphere contains the Western democracies, their universities and other major insitutions, including many of its religions, yours contains Islam, Evangelicals, Mormons, maybe Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Dang. I forgot to use a line like this in my entries in the SU Rant contest. That is one of my favorites.

[SeattleUte]

All that work and you only skimmed what I wrote. I do agree with your last sentence though for the most part.

I didn't skim! I thought it was one of your better essays. I thought the phrase about one foot in each sphere was a very good one. That really is a rather inexplicable reality about modern America; a kind of miracle; an acrobatic act that many intelligent people seem to pull off. Maybe just by not looking down!

[UtahDan]

I didn't skim! I thought it was one of your better essays. I thought the phrase about one foot in each sphere was a very good one. That really is a rather inexplicable reality about modern America; a kind of miracle; an acrobatic act that many intelligent people seem to pull off. Maybe just by not looking down!

Oh good. Two final thoughts: go back and refresh your memory about Svyazhky, that was the golden nugget in my post; you still have explained "ate his lunch" and it makes me sound like a bully until I know what that is. Like I took away some kid's brown bag because his had chips and mine had carrots.

[SeattleUte]

Oh good. Two final thoughts: go back and refresh your memory about Svyazhky, that was the golden nugget in my post; you still have explained "ate his lunch" and it makes me sound like a bully until I know what that is. Like I took away some kid's brown bag because his had chips and mine had carrots.

I thought the crux of your post was the point about a foot in each sphere, which was a good one. I still think one needs to be careful about using foibles of Old Testament characters as some kind of rationalization. My point is, I understand your point about a foot in each sphere--it's a good one--but nowadays thoughtful religious people don't look to Old Testament prophets as any kind of role model. They try to synthesize our society's highly evolved monotheism with their reasoning. Repeatedly Mormonism represents a departure from that highly evolved monotheism in ways that really matter (i.e., not really appreciating the evils of racism maybe still to this day). Maybe those don't cause you to re-evaluate your faith, but they would me, and I'm not alone in that respect.

I confess to not getting Svyazhky reference. I even googled it. Not one hit.

[SeattleUte]

Ate his lunch means you took his measure. It's street slang for that. I didn't mean he was like a helpless kid.

[UtahDan]

I confess to not getting Svyazhsky reference. I even googled it. Not one hit.

I may not have spelled it right. Try now.

This is Levin's friend who he goes to visit after seeing Kitty pass him on the road and deciding it was too humiliating to go see her. Tolstoy introduces Svyazhsky who is an intelligent paradox. He is full of revolutionary ideas and will talk about all sorts of things but whenever Levin tries to corner him on why he lives his life in apparent contradiction with all of his conclusions Svyahzsky invariably gets a slightly fearful look on his face and changes the topic. He is consequently an enigma to Levin.

http://books.google.com/books?id=yUl...esult&resnum=1

(scroll up from where the link leads you)

[SeattleUte]

I may not have spelled it right. Try now.

This is Levin's friend who he goes to visit after seeing Kitty pass him on the road and deciding it was too humiliating to go see her. Tolstoy introduces Svyazhsky who is an intelligent paradox. He is full of revolutionary ideas and will talk about all sorts of things but whenever Levin tries to corner him on why he lives his life in apparent contradiction with all of his conclusions Svyahzsky invariably gets a slightly fearful look on his face and changes the topic. He is consequently an enigma to Levin.

http://books.google.com/books?id=yUl...esult&resnum=1

Thanks for reminding me. You may recall I said in CG that Anna Karenina was not one of my favorite Tolstoy novels. This is largely because I'm not all that fond of Levin (even though he's supposed to be a Tolstoy self-portrait), the Novel's real hero. The world is too much all about Levin (in his own mind); he's too judgmental, pious; he lacks self-awareness, congratulating himself for spendng half a day in the fields with the serfs then returning to his big farm house to eat a lavish lunch prepared by more serfs; he lacks empathy, dismissing Anna and Oblonsky as sinners who suffer their self-made karma. He's like a lot of religious people! Of course many great novels have flawed heros and anti-heros. But I don't feel that Tolstoy intends that Levin be as unlikeable as he is to me; I think he sets him up as kind of an ideal man but I don't admire him much. His creator is too easy on him; I don't feel Levin learns any real lessons.

I have a vague recollection of the scene you describe. Does he live a contraditction becasue he's a revolutionary but lives as part of the privileged class?

Anyway, I'm impressed you liken yourself to someone like that instead of Levin, unlike our own Levin, who thinks he's Tolstoy's Levin. This takes him a long ways toward being insufferable.

EDIT: I do remember the scene where Kitty passes Levin in the coach. Levin of course was being very self-absorbed at that time and nearly depriving himself of the thing he wanted most in the world. Kitty in her hat and ribbons through the window of that coach on that dusty road are very well drawn.

[Jarid in Cedar]

Our own constitution codified that slaves were not fully human as well.

Assuming that you are talking about the 3/5ths compromise, I think that this is a common misnomer. The southern states wanted the slaves to count as a full count towards representatives in the House. The abolitionists tried to block this as it would have given greater power to the southern states to continue slavery through legislative means. The compromise comes across as an offense to people who felt that the constitutional framers valued a slave less, but in the long run it was able to decrease the power of the proslavery voting block.

and the BOA which is really on the second level of do you accept any religious claim that you can't touch, taste, hear, see or smell.

I disagree with you here. The papyrus that is in hand can be touched and seen. The persistent inclusion of the facsimilies in the POGP show that the church feels that Joseph's translations are correct, as they are canonized as part of LDS scripture. Joseph's use of the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar also links the existing papyrus to his translation of the BOA(which is in conflict of Jeff Lindsay's defense of the BOA).

Carry on.

[UtahDan]

Assuming that you are talking about the 3/5ths compromise, I think that this is a common misnomer. The southern states wanted the slaves to count as a full count towards representatives in the House. The abolitionists tried to block this as it would have given greater power to the southern states to continue slavery through legislative means. The compromise comes across as an offense to people who felt that the constitutional framers valued a slave less, but in the long run it was able to decrease the power of the proslavery voting block.

I'm referring to the idea that the Constitution contained both the Bill of Rights and by virtue of the compromise you are talking about at least implicitly approved of slavery.

I disagree with you here. The papyrus that is in hand can be touched and seen. The persistent inclusion of the facsimilies in the POGP show that the church feels that Joseph's translations are correct, as they are canonized as part of LDS scripture. Joseph's use of the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar also links the existing papyrus to his translation of the BOA(which is in conflict of Jeff Lindsay's defense of the BOA).

The only defense of the BOA that is not absurd, in my opinion, is that Joseph was inspired to received it whilst looking at the scrolls and he may have even believed (apparently he did) that he was looking at the genuine article. That is all a matter of evidence. What is not subject to disproof is that the finished book was given to Joseph by God, through whatever means, whether Joseph grasped the process or not. My point was that if evidence is the only standard you don't have common ground enough with a person of faith to discuss their claims.

It will be a difficult step, but I believe that the facsimiles will come out of the POGP in my lifetime just as the words "principle ancestors" were removed from the BOM. Or some other adjustment will be made. Or at least we will no longer say they are more than the thing that inspired Joseph. The coming generations, including ours, are going to be more willing to de-deify and de-mystify Joseph, that is, laud him for what he was (a prophet, seer and revelator) but simultaneously be at ease with him being confused and wrong at times. The higher the pedestal he is placed on and the more we shroud all his acts with knowledge, purpose, wisdom beyond our own the harder it is for members to accept his flaws. It is not necessary to do this and I think the trend is away from it. And that trend won't detract from the man or his teachings in the minds of most members.

[Jarid in Cedar]

The only defense of the BOA that is not absurd, in my opinion, is that Joseph was inspired to received it whilst looking at the scrolls and he may have even believed (apparently he did) that he was looking at the genuine article. That is all a matter of evidence. What is not subject to disproof is that the finished book was given to Joseph by God, through whatever means, whether Joseph grasped the process or not. My point was that if evidence is the only standard you don't have common ground enough with a person of faith to discuss their claims.

It will be a difficult step, but I believe that the facsimiles will come out of the POGP in my lifetime just as the words "principle ancestors" were removed from the BOM. Or some other adjustment will be made. Or at least we will no longer say they are more than the thing that inspired Joseph. The coming generations, including ours, are going to be more willing to de-deify and de-mystify Joseph, that is, laud him for what he was (a prophet, seer and revelator) but simultaneously be at ease with him being confused and wrong at times. The higher the pedestal he is placed on and the more we shroud all his acts with knowledge, purpose, wisdom beyond our own the harder it is for members to accept his flaws. It is not necessary to do this and I think the trend is away from it. And that trend won't detract from the man or his teachings in the minds of most members.

I agree that many more members take this view, but how long will it take for the church leadership to do the same? They stubbornly held on to BY race views for around 100 years. The topic of the deification of Joseph does not have the same negativity so where will the pressure(for lack of a better word) come from to make that transformation. Those who have already done so are critizied and mocked by the mullah both openly and privately. I would be surprised if it would happen in our generation or our kids generation as well.

[myboynoah]

I agree that many more members take this view, but how long will it take for the church leadership to do the same? They stubbornly held on to BY race views for around 100 years. The topic of the deification of Joseph does not have the same negativity so where will the pressure(for lack of a better word) come from to make that transformation. Those who have already done so are critizied and mocked by the mullah both openly and privately. I would be surprised if it would happen in our generation or our kids generation as well.

I'm with UD. I think it happens sooner, rather than later. Unable to exert control over information will/can force The Church to adjust. There is really only one way to go on this.

[SeattleUte]

I'm with UD. I think it happens sooner, rather than later. Unable to exert control over information will/can force The Church to adjust. There is really only one way to go on this.

And I'm sure that those who still believe literally in such things as earthly visitations from gods, angels and divine gold books will continue to do so as they do now, despite that Joseph demonstrably didn't translate any Book of Abraham and the cosmos and our world just do not seem to work that way in any event.

[SeattleUte]

It will be a difficult step, but I believe that the facsimiles will come out of the POGP in my lifetime just as the words "principle ancestors" were removed from the BOM. Or some other adjustment will be made. Or at least we will no longer say they are more than the thing that inspired Joseph. The coming generations, including ours, are going to be more willing to de-deify and de-mystify Joseph, that is, laud him for what he was (a prophet, seer and revelator) but simultaneously be at ease with him being confused and wrong at times. The higher the pedestal he is placed on and the more we shroud all his acts with knowledge, purpose, wisdom beyond our own the harder it is for members to accept his flaws. It is not necessary to do this and I think the trend is away from it. And that trend won't detract from the man or his teachings in the minds of most members.

Why not just jettison the whole thing? It doesn's say anything useful, and provided the scriptural support for the priesthood ban.